Following up on yesterday's Talk Mobile discussion on cross-platform apps, we're looking at one big-name app that everyone knows, iTunes. Yes we realize that iTunes has nothing to do with BlackBerry, but what if iTunes wasn't just for Apple products - what if it was also available for BlackBerry, Android and Windows Phone?

With BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry World combined music, movies, TV shows and apps into an all-in-one store making it easy for BlackBerry users to get all their media in one spot. While you can freely get your media on different BlackBerry devices, you can't view your media on other platforms - much like iTunes.

Over the years many people (including BlackBerry owners) have invested in iTunes be it on an iPhone, iPad or Mac Plenty of us have purchased media at one time or another. Much like BlackBerry World, iTunes isn't cross platform - meaning if you've gone from an iPhone to a BlackBerry or you've purchase movies/shows on your Mac at one time or another, you can't view them on another platform.

All we need is Spotify native on bb10! Then what would you need iTunes for? Movies? No, BlackBerry should open up 7digital to all regions... I was so looking forward to that, but the movies are not supported in my region :(

Some people are still not fans of the whole music streaming option. That being said, iTunes comes in handy for those types. Keep in mind that everyone has different preferences. Spotify and other streaming platforms are not for everyone. Those types of platforms are fine if you are not truly into creating and tinkering with music (i.e. the casual listener). You actually have more control over what you do with your music as it pertains to iTunes. (Not to be confused with the newly mentioned iRadio.) I hope that somewhat answers your question.

BlackBerry Users have too much P R I D E!! And I am a BlackBerry User. Why don't you want an app that all ready has it all when it comes to media? It will help non blackberry users to change with more ease.

Why isn't this article about BlackBerry World going multi-platform instead (for media only of course)? Same discussion, different point of view, aren't we on Crackberry.com ? That should be our point of view...

Now that we got how all of you guys feel about iTunes out of the way, could at least one of you three elaborate a bit more as to the reason behind why you feel that way? Just a matter of curiosity here. I mean, seeing as how we are giving up one of our biggest services in BBM soon, it would only seem right for Apple to do the same in terms of a cross platform move. On top of that, just like any other product, iTunes is not for everyone. So tell us why you guys hate it instead of just saying, "I hate it."

If they would like to, but I certainly wouldn't use it. iTunes was the thing I hated the most about the apple products I owned. There was not a single feature that I liked about it. Over the years they even managed to make it worse.

Wouldn't expect to see Apple consider moving it cross-platform until margins on their hardware drop significantly. Apple doesn't seem to like playing with the other kids on the playground unless they have to.

Actually my dislike for Apple started long before BlackBeries were around. I have owned Mac's when I was younger and every single one of them had issues out of the box. I have never expeirinced that with any PC I owned. No Apple software worked as advertised for me on a mac or PC. I use to have itunes and an ipod till died after two days. That was the last straw for me. Every apple product i bought always had issues and their software i find alway buggy esspecially if its made for PC.

I will admit you make good points and yes it would only help BB if itunes was there. I will admit i was harsh saying it was the worst piece of software ever made. As far as being great software i doubt that or everyone i know wounldnt complain that using it is the worst part of using an iphone or ipod. And several of them use itunes from Mac's

It would be a slap in the face of every BB10 developer who spent months to learn Cascades.
If this happens, Apple would own the most important crossplatform app store. And no one would make native apps for BB10 anymore. I would stop it for sure. Do you really want this?

Nooooopo. ITunes is bloated piece of shit.. I don't want to anything to do with the mobile app in the phones. Seeing how many ui changes they make in iTunes I can only imagine what it would be like on a non is device.

ITunes is one of the many reasons I finally gave up bios and went to android. Now with bb10

ITunes is horrible and caused me no end of issues.
If it was to come over I would like to see it as a complete standalone and not baked into the os at all.
That way I can choose to keep well away from it and others can choose to do what they wish

I voted yes for 2 reasons.
1. Pricing. iTunes tends to be cheaper than BlackBerry World. Most music I want to buy is at least 20 to sometimes 50 cents cheaper per song on iTunes than it is on BB World. This could be a regional thing, I'm not sure on that, but since mp3s are nowadays DRM free and easy to transfer, I prefer using iTunes for my music purchases
2. Movies an tv shows aren't available at all through BB World for me in the Netherlands. I have purchased a few on iTunes, but with those I do run into the DRM issue.

Honestly though, I would be just fine if iTunes and BB World didn't go cross platform, but made all of their audio and video available DRM free and to all regions. This is 2013, when will publishers realize they only invite piracy by keeping these georestrictions in place and by putting DRM protection on everything? I'm happy to spend my money, but content needs to be available and I need to know I can use it on all my devices.

Not unless Apple builds a better PC app that doesn't frustrate the heck out of you and want to update every second day. I understand the Mac version works better but I'm not a Mac user, so don't really know. I have heard rumors that Apple doesn't want iTunes to work as well on a PC as it does on a Mac for the same reason Microsoft's Mac version of Office isn't as good as the PC version

I own a PC, and I have never been bothered to update the software as much as you mention. As a matter of fact, I am always surprised when I DO get an update notification for the software. The only issue I have with iTunes is the UI after the last update, but like everything else (a great example would be BlackBerry 10), you get used to it. Also like everything else, nothing is perfect. However, you wouldn't know the latter from reading the many various posts on here.

No thanks itunes sucks still till this day gets worse every update.The Q5 will replace my ipod video i think its got a wheel.I will soon leave itunes its just not great software.I never purchased anything on there either. No one wants apple apps they dont have anything great.If itunes was to come over it would be just a music player thats inferior to stock and many music players in app stores.Apple dont need to make a cross platform app they need to allow other devices to sync to itunes for mac/ipad/pc users not create a shitty app.

Well..... considering that music and videos are not available to me because of the region ( which is total BS) I wouldn't mind having some sort of way to buy music and or videos, so it would be cool
However, the less I have to do with Apple the better, Apple is just a platform for old people now, no innovations of any kind

I think it makes sense. I love my BlackBerry to the point that I'm willing to sacrifice the missing apps. With that said BlackBerry World does not have all the music, movies and we don't even have Kobo on bb10. If iTunes were to go cross platform it would be my one stop shop for everything minus the apps. I would love for BlackBerry World to catch up but it doesn't seem to be moving too fast.

So Apple if you want me to stop spreading my funds through Kobo(playbook), BlackBerry World and Amazon on these specific media addictions I say you go cross.

Kevin: that is a very good question. I have strong positive feelings about iTunes. Steve jobs was a briliant ioneer with the iTunes store. I remember when he started it all. My company was on a big contract with Sony music on Madison Ave at the the time. Its all gone now and Sony had to subsequenty merge with BMG to stay relevant. At the time we were in the midst of the whole digital music distribution conundrum. We were working on both the physical media distribution systems (cd and dvd) and well as trying to figure out the infrastructure needed to maintain the reems of digital media content. Forget about figuring out how to sell and distribute it. No one whether it was Sony, bmg or Universal had a clue about how to do it alone or together. We are talking the year 2002. This was also a time when the whole napster thing had crashed and a whole lot of other music pirates had taken over and no one knew how to battle them. It was really the iTunes store which was released on or about 2003 that solved the whole digital media distribution thing. Apple and Steve Jobs just figured how to do something all the big guns, even Sony could not do. To me iTunes is the pioneer and just plain wonderful and I would absolutely love for it to be on Blackberry. By the way to all the nay sayers on itunes but want BBM on other platforms: What's good for the goose must be good for the gander.

I've invested a lot in iTunes over the years because I had the first iPad. Even though I knew at the time that I wouldn't be able to use my purchases on devices other than Apple's, it still feels like a bit of a rip. These media services should put consumers first. It's in Apple'a interest too since they're more of a media publishing company than a hardware company in many ways. If iTunes were on BlackBerry 10 I would definitely use it.

Would be great for serious iTunes users, but like some others on here said they have not made an iTunes purchase in a long time, I fit into that category. I could care less, but for you iTunes users it would be great.

Why not? I personally don't care if anything Crapple comes to BlackBerry - but, I do know a lot of other people who probably would like that. I have never used itunes beyond helping somebody else if they're having a problem with it. I will always refuse to use any Crapple products, but other people would likely love this option.

In my opinion: no - simple reason that has almost nothing to do with Apple.

It's nowhere near as good a multimedia service as many others; desktop version almost useless unless you have a top spec computer or a mac and no .flac support (since Apple is certain they'll get people to buy into their platform instead of an open source codec). I care not, whether Apple would bring iTunes to other platforms, I just know I'll be avoiding using it on all of my devices, in favour of more effective media players (winamp, neutron music player, etc.)

If we look the way Apps Stores operates (also apply to all other equivalent) the fact is you never really bought (owns) a song, films, books, apps... in fact you are just buying the right to access them, but only if you own and Apple devices (talking about the Apple Store).
So for me this is not the definition of a "purchase", where I could use it the way I would like to do (from PC, mobile device, smartphone, car...), and I could do whatever I would like to do with it (resell, lend or rent an item).
The way it is working now consist on no more than a conditionnal / limited-time rental. Whereas if you no longer own an Apple device, you just can't use them.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when going to the Apps store they are just giving the impression that we are "purchasing" a product... which is not totally right.
So any of our "purchase" should be easily available, and cross-platform should have been a standard for years.

Like I said on Twitter, if we're giving them BBM, they owe us iTunes. Plus, they'll make money off of all of the people like me who have switched back to BB. It's a must. They're just waiting to see some more numbers--just like facebook and twitter are (insta + vine).

It would make sense commercially since a lot of people still use that awful app to buy music, but Apple is smug and just like BlackBerry a few years back, they believe this will bring more people to their mobile platform.

I would be surprised if apple even decided to do something like that, they aren't very open with their softwares and I don't see them changing any time soon. Being a shareholder though, I can see this helping blackberry sales... so good for BlackBerry, bad for Apple :)

Would be great for BlackBerry and other platforms... and Apple would see some additional revenue from sales.

But in the long run iTunes is a lot like BBM for BlackBerry, it was the thing that made a BB device special and what really help drive sales before there were other devices. If RIM had not fallen so far behind on hardware and software, BBM would be helping to keep customers and draw more customers to the platform. But the advantages of BBM didn't outweigh the other shortcomings of the rest of the platform.

As long as Apple has is a major player, I don't see them needing to go cross platform like BBM does.

I'd rather see Apple license "Siri" to BB as that may be the single best application on any phone. Their "Facetime" is pretty awesome too--besides that they have nothing that I want (just my opinion). But would love to have Siri. Great for business people on the go and would be the perfect fit for Blackberry users who usually are on the go!

After reading the comments, I sensed that there are many who don't care for iTunes. I use it only because it's been the simplest way to get my music on my devices. Tha being said, I don't like the DRM limitations. Maybe BlackBerry can develop a better cross-platform program that is better (ie: lean and flexible).

I'm sorry but that's Apple's dominance in the smartphone market is it's App Store and iTunes. I think absolutely not should iTunes come to BlackBerry; RIM dropped the ball when it came to their crap App World. And no, I'm not a BlackBerry hater or Apple lover - I came over to Apple after having so many different devices from RIM, then they released the Torch, and I was done. After using that crap Berry, I switched to iPhone and never looked back.

Apple should keep iTunes and App Store to itself and keep rubbing it in other company's faces, and having more developers create great apps for them. Yah it's mean, but they saw what consumers wanted and now reap the rewards of it. Why would you share that? LOL.

Edit: By the way, you can download DRM Free songs from iTunes and transfer them to BlackBerry - did it all the time with my crap Torch and my girlfriend still has her BlackBerry and does the same.

Lmao because the desktop version of iTunes is bloated and slow!! Definitely not my 'precious iTunes' - it needs a total overhaul because its slow and loves to crash a lot. However, saying that, it's amazing on my iPhone and definitely should not be cross-platformed. If you wanted to use iTunes for BlackBerry on desktop, go right ahead; I hate it too and don't sync to it, everything I do is backed up wirelessly. But iTunes for BlackBerry, Android, or Windows - hell no. Apple wins there.

Yes, because Apple will make a lot of profit, plus it will force BlackBerry to lower their prices on their music content... And it will help People to buy other products such as BlackBerry Z10 or Windows Phone 8 and more.

Absolutely not. The weakest link in the entire Apple ecosystem is itunes. Keep it away from everything that is BB10.
Its a clunky non-intuitive interface that leaves a lot to be desired.
its bulky, crash-prone and a permission diva. (try removing quicktime and leaving itunes- let's just say memories of Hal from Space Odyssey...)
No thank you.

Apple should license the itunes STORE out, so third parties could access content without requiring the itunes software. That way apple can gain profits from new customers (like blackberry users), and we can use link or whatever to buy from their catalogue. It's a win win for everyone.

ITunes was a great program and I have been using it for years to manage my 25.000 or so song library, and a few years ago I would have said 'definatly yes', but the last couple of updates have messed up the smoothness and workability of the program... they are trying too much to cram everything in there and messing up the usability ... so I'm afraid I'll have to say a definitely no at this point :-(

Won't happen. You can have a piece of the cake, but you can't have the cake. Having iTunes become available on other platform takes away a part of the experience that differentiates Apple from the rest of the competition. I can see it happen for desktop Linux to sell more music, but not phones. The music format adopted by Apple is already an open standard so it shouldn't be a problem to buy songs on the PC and drag the songs to our phones.

I accept that it could make some people happy IF IT WERE DONE RIGHT. However, history tells us that Apple NEVER made a product that runs well on anything other another Apple product and that includes iTunes for, say, Windows.

That effective certainty would not only yield subpar experience but would extremely likely end up being a resource hog it really is and, in reality, serve as Apples negative marketing arm ("see how iTunes sucks on pick-a-platform - get our iStuff for proper experience") kind of a thing.

If your library is DRM free, you don't have to use iTunes to play it. For managing the library on the device there are so many better options already on BB10 - I found this to be very clumsy with iTunes. The only reason one may want iTunes is their selection and Apple may go for their money this way, with all the caveats above. That said I found BlackBerry selection adequate and I can use alternative ways to get other content... including iTunes via PC (disclaimer: I never actually did this even though we have some iStuff in house, I just don't like giving money to Apple - nothing related to BlackBerry)

BlackBerry Users have too much P R I D E!! And I am a BlackBerry User. Why don't you want an app that all ready has it all when it comes to media? It will help non blackberry users to change with more ease.

The way to go is switching to amazon. Unlock all your music, upload it to their cloud a few years ago before they started charging so that your grandfathered in. Sync your music to your blackberry. Buy movies on amazon and stream them on HD off their site. Now your content is on all devices.

Making things cross platform only increases popularity and revenue! iTunes would be awesome to have on BlackBerry! I use it anyway. It's just more of a hassle to sync all the iTunes music I have from my computer. It would be way simpler to just have an app on my Z10!

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